Eugene Weekly : News : 3.3.11

A draft Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan for Eugene with hundreds of miles of new facilities could leap the city toward active transportation that will dramatically increase local health, livability and safety while reducing pollution, environmental impacts and global warming, and saving hundreds of millions of dollars.

The plan, created after a record-breaking 600 public comments, includes 116 miles of new bike lanes, cycletracks, bike boulevards and other treatments and 43 miles of new sidewalks, and sets the goal of doubling biking and walking. Eugene's 11 percent bike commute rate, already the highest in the nation for a city its size, would reach 22 percent in 20 years.

A plan open house is set for 4 to 7 pm Thursday, March 3, at St. Mary's church across from the library, or go to bit.ly/fgzaGW to comment online.

Here's a look at some of the key new improvements proposed in the draft plan:

Bike lanes on Willamette Street from 18th to 32nd avenues. This long-sought improvement has received the most support in public comments, and Willamette has the third highest number of bike accidents in the city.

A High Street cycletrack separated from cars from 19th to 6th to connect the Amazon bike path to the river path system. The city has called for a one-way cycletrack, although bike advocates have called for a two-way connection.

Intersection safety improvements at 23 locations heavily used by bikes and pedestrians.

Many of the projects should please cycling advocates. But some apparent gaps or controversial areas in the draft remain. For example, instead of bike lanes, the plan offers only a "bike boulevard" on busy Franklin Boulevard in the heavily biked UO area. In the plan, "bike boulevards" appear only loosely defined to include anything from an already existing bike route sign to a calmed street like Alder with "Do Not Enter; Except Bikes" signs.

The plan also appears to include a previous city plan for removing a very heavily used bike lane on 13th leading into the UO and replacing it with "sharrows" that will supposedly cause cars to share the lane with bikes. Other bike gaps include the absence of bike lanes on Willamette through downtown and on Hilyard between 17th and 24th.

The proposed plan also appears to deemphasize cycletracks, separated bike paths which have lead to increased safety and cycle commute rates as high as 50 percent in Europe. The plan cited a Danish study that found that cycletracks were three to four times more effective at increasing ridership than bike lanes. But the proposed plan's mileage is only 7 percent cycletracks with only the one-way, High Street connection in heavily biked central Eugene.

The biggest challenge for the bike/ped plan may be winning approval and millions of dollars in ongoing funding from the City Council and city staff. Although numerous studies have shown that bike facilities cost far less and are much better for human health and the environment than road projects, bike lanes in previous city plans have floundered when the city prioritized car parking over bike safety, and new asphalt and developer subsidies over safety improvements for bikes and pedestrians. In the last five years, 316 cyclists have been injured and four cyclists killed in Eugene.

In Portland, bike advocates have become one of the most organized, effective and powerful political groups lobbying the mayor and council directly. But although Eugene has a far larger concentration of cyclists, that has yet to happen here.